President Trump on Tuesday at the White House. A vote on his pick for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is expected as soon as Wednesday evening.Credit...Al Drago/The New York Times

Trump goes after another company, and this time it’s personal

Mr. Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing and accessories line, once again raising questions about the tangled relationship between the president and his family’s business interests.

The president has been criticized for singling out other companies for criticism, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, prompting gyrations in their stock prices, but those controversies had to do with government contracts, not his family’s own fortunes.

Nordstrom, the department store chain, said on Friday that it was dropping the Ivanka Trump line, a decision it said was based on sales performance. A campaign, using the hashtag #GrabYourWallet, which has encouraged shoppers to boycott products with ties to Mr. Trump, his family and his donors, called the Nordstrom announcement a victory.

It was not clear what prompted the president to criticize the company five days later. As Mr. Trump has noted several times, federal conflict-of-interest laws apply to other officials, but not to the president.

Mr. Trump’s blast at the company came two days after his wife, Melania, filed a libel lawsuit describing her “multiyear term” as “one of the most photographed women in the world” — an apparent reference to her status as a candidate’s wife and now first lady — as a lucrative business opportunity.

DeVos brings along a sense of humor on her first day

A day after her narrow confirmation as education secretary, Betsy DeVos toured the department she now leads and delivered a speech to staff members and reporters.

She began with a joke: “This confirmation process and the drama it engendered have been a bit of a bear,” she said, a reference to her much-lampooned comment during her Senate hearing that schools might need guns to protect students from “grizzlies.”

“We’ve just come through one of the most bruising, divisive elections in modern times, and that’s O.K.,” she said. “All of us here can help bring unity by personally committing to being more open to and patient toward views different from our own.”

In her speech, she did not mention some of the issues that had made her such a contentious nominee, like her support of private school vouchers and charter schools. But while she had seemed unfamiliar in her Senate hearing with basic education terms and policies, such as the requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, on Wednesday Ms. DeVos went out of her way to promise to serve “special-needs students and families to whom we owe our full support,” as well as “students who may be struggling” and “hardworking teachers who may feel stifled.”

She continued, “I pledge to listen and learn from you, and from stakeholders around our country.”

The finish line is near on a rocky road to attorney general

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Senator Jeff Sessions, center, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, before a Senate committee meeting on Capitol Hill last week.Credit...Al Drago/The New York Times

Capping a strikingly contentious confirmation process, the Senate is expected to vote as soon as Wednesday evening on the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama to be attorney general.

Senators usually show a great deal of deference when one of their own is nominated for a cabinet post. But Democrats have sharply criticized over his background on civil rights and his stances on voter access and immigration.

After Mr. Sessions’s nomination cleared a procedural hurdle on Tuesday in the Senate, Democrats took to the floor to reiterate their opposition to the senator during the final hourslong debate.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote those Twitter posts after being halted by the majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, as she tried to read on the floor a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King opposing Mr. Sessions’s nomination for a judgeship.

Mr. McConnell, in a rare step, said Ms. Warren had breached Senate rules by impugning the character of Mr. Sessions. The Senate then voted, along party lines, to bar Ms. Warren from speaking again during the debate.

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Trump Calls Courts ‘So Political’

President Trump stepped up his criticism of the United States judicial system a day after his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries faced close scrutiny from an appeals court.

courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right. And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important.”

President Trump stepped up his criticism of the United States judicial system a day after his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries faced close scrutiny from an appeals court.CreditCredit...Al Drago/The New York Times

In the end, though, Democrats can do little more than raise their voices. None of the 52 Republicans have said they would vote against Mr. Sessions, and he needs only a simple majority to win confirmation.

In a bit of procedural strategy, Republican leaders held off on Mr. Sessions’s vote until after confirming Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education secretary. With Mr. Sessions still in the Senate, Republicans had just enough votes to push her to confirmation.

A losing case? Blame ‘politics’

A day after a federal appeals court panel voiced skepticism over his targeted travel ban, Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge on Wednesday the possibility that he could lose the case.

But to lose the normal way, on the merits? The president sees other forces at play.

Later in the morning, Mr. Trump resumed that theme at a gathering of sheriffs and police chiefs. “I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased,” he said. “But courts seem to be so political.” He also called the appeals court hearing “disgraceful.”

With that, Mr. Trump kept up his efforts to call into question the independence of the judiciary — a cornerstone of American democracy. A few days ago, he referred to the district court judge in the travel ban case as a “so-called judge.” And before that, he doubted that the judge in a Trump University case could be impartial because of his Mexican heritage.

The president has been pre-emptively blaming judges for any terrorist attack that might happen during the travel ban suspension. On Sunday, he attacked the district court judge who blocked his immigration order, James Robart of Seattle. “If something happens,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, “blame him and court system.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump was back on Twitter, claiming that foreigners were flowing into the United States from “certain areas.”

Senators want a say before Russia sanctions can be lifted

A bipartisan group of senators is expected to introduce legislation on Wednesday that would require congressional approval for Mr. Trump to lift sanctions on Russia, according to two Senate aides.

The group is expected to include six senators: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, all Republicans; and Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, all Democrats.

The effort comes amid longstanding worries on Capitol Hill that the Trump administration might be too dovish on Russia, which intelligence officials say intervened in the election in an effort to help Mr. Trump. Last week, the president seemed to defend the reputation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by asking an interviewer, “You think our country’s so innocent?”

Conservative Jews have a lot to ask the vice president about

The vice president will attend a Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas at the end of the month, according to a notice from the group sent to prospective attendees.

Las Vegas is home to one of the group’s biggest donors, the casino magnate Sheldon G. Adelson.

Mr. Pence’s trip will come a few weeks after the Trump administration issued a muted statement about Israeli settlements, calling for immediate curbs on construction but also signaling a shift away from the Obama administration’s rejection of all settlement activity. It will also come after the president’s promise to immediately move the American Embassy to Jerusalem has been delayed.

No walls between Mattis and his Mexican counterparts

It seems that no mission is too impossible for Jim Mattis to take on. During a recent trip to Asia, Mr. Mattis, the defense secretary, succeeded in shoring up connections with South Korea and Japan despite Mr. Trump’s campaign talk about pulling back from the United States’ security commitments in the region.

On Tuesday, Mr. Mattis made an effort to salvage relations with Mexico, at least in the area of military cooperation.

According to a statement issued Tuesday night by the Pentagon, Mr. Mattis spoke by phone with two of his Mexican counterparts: Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the secretary of national defense, and Adm. Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz, the secretary of the navy. Mr. Mattis talked about the need to strengthen military connections between the two countries, and “lauded Mexico’s growing leadership in the region,” the Pentagon said.

The statement did not say when Mr. Mattis might be visiting the country, but it noted that Mexico was planning to host the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in 2018. No word if Mr. Trump’s wall will be built by then.